Chapter XV: Preface (5)

THEO. The EGO which reincarnates, the _individual_ and
immortal—not personal—“I”; the vehicle, in short, of the
Atma-Buddhic MONAD, that which is rewarded in Devachan and
punished on earth, and that, finally, to which the reflection only
of the _Skandhas_, or attributes, of every incarnation attaches
itself.[33]

ENQ. What do you mean by _Skandhas_?

THEO. Just what I said: “attributes,” among which is _memory_, all of
which perish like a flower, leaving behind them only a feeble
perfume. Here is another paragraph from H. S. Olcott’s “Buddhist
Catechism”[34] which bears directly upon the subject. It deals
with the question as follows:—“The aged man remembers the
incidents of his youth, despite his being physically and mentally
changed. Why, then, is not the recollection of past lives brought
over by us from our last birth into the present birth? Because
memory is included within the Skandhas, and the Skandhas having
changed with the new existence, a memory, the record of that
particular existence, develops. Yet the record or reflection
of all the past lives must survive, for when Prince Siddhartha
became Buddha, the full sequence of His previous births were seen
by Him ... and any one who attains to the state of _Jhana_ can
thus retrospectively trace the line of his lives.” This proves to
you that while the undying qualities of the personality—such as
love, goodness, charity, etc.—attach themselves to the immortal
Ego, photographing on it, so to speak, a permanent image of the
divine aspect of the man who was, his material Skandhas (those
which generate the most marked Karmic effects) are as evanescent
as a flash of lightning, and cannot impress the new brain of the
new personality; yet their failing to do so impairs in no way the
identity of the reincarnating Ego.

ENQ. Do you mean to infer that that which survives is only the
Soul-memory, as you call it, that Soul or Ego being one and the
same, while nothing of the personality remains?

THEO. Not quite; something of each personality, unless the latter was
an _absolute_ materialist with not even a chink in his nature for
a spiritual ray to pass through, must survive, as it leaves its
eternal impress on the incarnating permanent Self or Spiritual
Ego.[35] (See On _post mortem_ and _post natal_ Consciousness.)
The personality with its Skandhas is ever changing with every new
birth. It is, as said before, only the part played by the actor
(the true Ego) for one night. This is why we preserve no memory on
the physical plane of our past lives, though the _real_ “Ego” has
lived them over and knows them all.

ENQ. Then how does it happen that the real or Spiritual man does not
impress his new personal “I” with this knowledge?

THEO. How is it that the servant-girls in a poor farm-house could speak
Hebrew and play the violin in their trance or somnambulic state,
and knew neither when in their normal condition? Because, as every
genuine psychologist of the old, not your modern, school, will
tell you, the Spiritual Ego can act only when the personal Ego is
paralysed. The Spiritual “I” in man is omniscient and has every
knowledge innate in it; while the personal self is the creature of
its environment and the slave of the physical memory. Could the
former manifest itself uninterruptedly, and without impediment,
there would be no longer men on earth, but we should all be gods.

ENQ. Still there ought to be exceptions, and some ought to remember.

THEO. And so there are. But who believes in their report? Such
sensitives are generally regarded as hallucinated hysteriacs, as
crack-brained enthusiasts, or humbugs, by modern materialism.
Let them read, however, works on this subject, pre-eminently
“Re-incarnation, a Study of Forgotten Truth” by E. D. Walker,
F.T.S., and see in it the mass of proofs which the able author
brings to bear on this vexed question. One speaks to people of
soul, and some ask “What is Soul?” “Have you ever proved its
existence?” Of course it is useless to argue with those who are
materialists. But even to them I would put the question: “Can you
remember what you were or did when a baby? Have you preserved
the smallest recollection of your life, thoughts, or deeds, or
that you lived at all during the first eighteen months or two
years of your existence? Then why not deny that you have ever
lived as a babe, on the same principle?” When to all this we add
that the reincarnating Ego, or _individuality_, retains during
the Devachanic period merely the essence of the experience of its
past earth-life or personality, the whole physical experience
involving into a state of _in potentia_, or being, so to speak,
translated into spiritual formulæ; when we remember further that
the term between two rebirths is said to extend from ten to
fifteen centuries, during which time the physical consciousness is
totally and absolutely inactive, having no organs to act through
and therefore _no existence_, the reason for the absence of all
remembrance in the purely physical memory is apparent.

ENQ. You just said that the SPIRITUAL EGO was omniscient. Where, then,
is that vaunted omniscience during his Devachanic life, as you call
it?

THEO. During that time it is latent and potential, because first of
all, the Spiritual Ego (the compound of Buddhi-Manas) is _not_ the
Higher SELF, which being one with the Universal Soul or Mind is
alone omniscient; and, secondly, because Devachan is the idealized
continuation of the terrestrial life just left behind, a period
of retributive adjustment, and a reward for unmerited wrongs
and sufferings undergone in that special life. It is omniscient
only _potentially_ in Devachan, and _de facto_ exclusively in
Nirvana, when the Ego is merged in the Universal Mind-Soul. Yet
it re-becomes _quasi_ omniscient during those hours on earth when
certain abnormal conditions and physiological changes in the body
make the _Ego_ free from the trammels of matter. Thus the examples
cited above of somnambulists, a poor servant speaking Hebrew, and
another playing the violin, give you an illustration of the case
in point. This does not mean that the explanations of these two
facts offered us by medical science have no truth in them, for
one girl had, years before, heard her master, a clergyman, read
Hebrew works aloud, and the other had heard an artist playing a
violin at their farm. But neither could have done so as perfectly
as they did had they not been ensouled by THAT which, owing to the
sameness of its nature with the Universal Mind, is omniscient.
Here the higher principle acted on the Skandhas and moved them;
in the other, the personality being paralysed, the individuality
manifested itself. Pray do not confuse the two.

ON INDIVIDUALITY AND PERSONALITY.[36]

ENQ. But what is the difference between the two? I confess that I am
still in the dark. Indeed it is just that difference, then, that
you cannot impress too much on our minds.

THEO. I try to; but alas, it is harder with some than to make them feel
a reverence for childish impossibilities, only because they
are _orthodox_, and because orthodoxy is respectable. To
understand the idea well, you have to first study the dual sets
of “principles”; the _spiritual_, or those which belong to the
imperishable Ego; and the _material_, or those principles which
make up the ever-changing bodies or the series of personalities of
that Ego. Let us fix permanent names to these, and say that:—

I. Atma, the “Higher Self,” is neither your Spirit nor mine, but
like sunlight shines on all. It is the universally diffused
“_divine principle_,” and is inseparable from its one and
absolute _Meta_-Spirit, as the sunbeam is inseparable from
sunlight.

II. _Buddhi_ (the spiritual soul) is only its vehicle. Neither each
separately, nor the two collectively, are of any more use
to the body of man, then sunlight and its beams are for a
mass of granite buried in the earth, _unless the divine Duad
is assimilated by, and reflected in_, some _consciousness_.
Neither Atma nor Buddhi are ever reached by Karma, because
the former is the highest aspect of Karma, _its working
agent_ of ITSELF in one aspect, and the other is unconscious
_on this plane_. This consciousness or mind is,

III. _Manas_,[37] the derivation or product in a reflected form of
_Ahamkara_, “the conception of I,” or EGO-SHIP. It is,
therefore, when inseparably united to the first two, called
the SPIRITUAL EGO, and _Taijasi_ (the radiant).

This is the real Individuality, or the divine man. It is this Ego
which—having originally incarnated in the _senseless_ human form
animated by, but unconscious (since it had no consciousness) of,
the presence in itself of the dual monad—made of that human-like
form _a real man_. It is that Ego, that “Causal Body,” which
overshadows every personality Karma forces it to incarnate into;
and this Ego which is held responsible for all the sins committed
through, and in, every new body or personality—the evanescent
masks which hide the true Individual through the long series of
rebirths.

ENQ. But is this just? Why should this EGO receive punishment as the
result of deeds which it has forgotten?

THEO. It has not forgotten them; it knows and remembers its misdeeds as
well as you remember what you have done yesterday. Is it because
the memory of that bundle of physical compounds called “body” does
not recollect what its predecessor (the personality _that was_)
did, that you imagine that the real Ego has forgotten them? As
well say it is unjust that the new boots on the feet of a boy, who
is flogged for stealing apples, should be punished for that which
they know nothing of.

ENQ. But are there no modes of communication between the Spiritual and
human consciousness or memory?

THEO. Of course there are; but they have never been recognised by your
scientific modern psychologists. To what do you attribute
intuition, the “voice of the conscience,” premonitions,
vague undefined reminiscences, etc., etc., if not to such
communications? Would that the majority of educated men, at least,
had the fine spiritual perceptions of Coleridge, who shows how
intuitional he is in some of his comments. Hear what he says with
respect to the probability that “all thoughts are in themselves
imperishable.” “If the intelligent faculty (sudden ‘revivals’
of memory) should be rendered more comprehensive, it would
require only a different and appropriate organization, the _body
celestial_ instead of the _body terrestrial_, to bring before
every human soul _the collective experience of its whole past
existence_ (_existences_, rather).” And this _body celestial_ is
our Manasic EGO.

ON THE REWARD AND PUNISHMENT OF THE EGO.

ENQ. I have heard you say that the _Ego_, whatever the life of the
person he incarnated in may have been on Earth, is never visited
with _post-mortem_ punishment.

THEO. Never, save in very exceptional and rare cases of which we will
not speak here, as the nature of the “punishment” in no way
approaches any of your theological conceptions of damnation.

ENQ. But if it is punished in this life for the misdeeds committed in a
previous one, then it is this Ego that ought to be rewarded also,
whether here, or when disincarnated.

THEO. And so it is. If we do not admit of any punishment outside of
this earth, it is because the only state the Spiritual Self knows
of, hereafter, is that of unalloyed bliss.

ENQ. What do you mean?

THEO. Simply this: _crimes and sins committed on a plane of objectivity
and in a world of matter, cannot receive punishment in a world
of pure subjectivity_. We believe in no hell or paradise as
localities; in no objective hell-fires and worms that never die,
nor in any Jerusalems with streets paved with sapphires and
diamonds. What we believe in is a _post-mortem state_ or mental
condition, such as we are in during a vivid dream. We believe
in an immutable law of absolute Love, Justice, and Mercy. And
believing in it, we say: “Whatever the sin and dire results of the
original Karmic transgression of the now incarnated Egos[38] no
man (or the outer material and periodical form of the Spiritual
Entity) can be held, with any degree of justice, responsible for
the consequences of his birth. He does not ask to be born, nor can
he choose the parents that will give him life. In every respect he
is a victim to his environment, the child of circumstances over
which he has no control; and if each of his transgressions were
impartially investigated, there would be found nine out of every
ten cases when he was the one sinned against, rather than the
sinner. Life is at best a heartless play, a stormy sea to cross,
and a heavy burden often too difficult to bear. The greatest
philosophers have tried in vain to fathom and find out its _raison
d’être_, and have all failed except those who had the key to it,
namely, the Eastern sages. Life is, as Shakespeare describes it:—

... but a walking shadow—a poor player, That struts and frets his
hour upon the stage, And then is heard no more. It is a tale Told
by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing....”

Nothing in its separate parts, yet of the greatest importance in
its collectivity or series of lives. At any rate, almost every
individual life is, in its full development, a sorrow. And are we
to believe that poor, helpless men, after being tossed about like
a piece of rotten timber on the angry billows of life, is, if he
proves too weak to resist them, to be punished by a _sempiternity_
of damnation, or even a temporary punishment? Never! Whether a
great or an average sinner, good or bad, guilty or innocent, once
delivered of the burden of physical life, the tired and worn-out
_Manu_ (“thinking Ego”) has won the right to a period of absolute
rest and bliss. The same unerringly wise and just rather than
merciful Law, which inflicts upon the incarnated Ego the Karmic
punishment for every sin committed during the preceding life on
Earth, provided for the now disembodied Entity a long lease of
mental rest, _i.e._, the entire oblivion of every sad event, aye,
to the smallest painful thought, that took place in its last life
as a personality, leaving in the soul-memory but the reminiscence
of that which was bliss, or led to happiness. Plotinus, who said
that our body was the true river of Lethe, for “souls plunged into
it forget all,” meant more than he said. For, as our terrestrial
body is like Lethe, so is our _celestial body_ in Devachan, and
much more.

ENQ. Then am I to understand that the murderer, the transgressor of law
divine and human in every shape, is allowed to go unpunished?

THEO. Who ever said that? Our philosophy has a doctrine of punishment
as stern as that of the most rigid Calvinist, only far more
philosophical and consistent with absolute justice. No deed,
not even a sinful thought, will go unpunished; the latter more
severely even than the former, as a thought is far more potential
in creating evil results than even a deed.[39] We believe in an
unerring law of Retribution, called KARMA, which asserts itself in
a natural concatenation of causes and their unavoidable results.

ENQ. And how, or where, does it act?

THEO. Every labourer is worthy of his hire, saith Wisdom in the Gospel;
every action, good or bad, is a prolific parent, saith the Wisdom
of the Ages. Put the two together, and you will find the “why.”
After allowing the Soul, escaped from the pangs of personal life,
a sufficient, aye, a hundredfold compensation, Karma, with its
army of Skandhas, waits at the threshold of Devachan, whence the
_Ego_ re-emerges to assume a new incarnation. It is at this moment
that the future destiny of the now-rested Ego trembles in the
scales of just Retribution, as _it_ now falls once again under the
sway of active Karmic law. It is in this re-birth which is ready
for _it_, a re-birth selected and prepared by this mysterious,
inexorable, but in the equity and wisdom of its decrees infallible
LAW, that the sins of the previous life of the Ego are punished.
Only it is into no imaginary Hell, with theatrical flames and
ridiculous tailed and horned devils, that the Ego is cast, but
verily on to this earth, the plane and region of his sins, where
he will have to atone for every bad thought and deed. As he
has sown, so will he reap. Re-incarnation will gather around
him all those other Egos who have suffered, whether directly
or indirectly, at the hands, or even through the unconscious
instrumentality, of the past _personality_. They will be thrown
by Nemesis in the way of the _new_ man, concealing the _old_, the
eternal EGO, and ...

ENQ. But where is the equity you speak of, since these _new_
“personalities” are not aware of having sinned or been sinned
against?

THEO. Has the coat torn to shreds from the back of the man who stole
it, by another man who was robbed of it and recognises his
property, to be regarded as fairly dealt with? The new
“personality” is no better than a fresh suit of clothes with its
specific characteristics, colour, form and qualities; but the
_real_ man who wears it is the same culprit as of old. It is the
_individuality_ who suffers through his “personality.” And it is
this, and this alone, that can account for the terrible, still
only _apparent_, injustice in the distribution of lots in life
to man. When your modern philosophers will have succeeded in
showing to us a good reason, why so many apparently innocent and
good men are born only to suffer during a whole lifetime; why so
many are born poor unto starvation in the slums of great cities,
abandoned by fate and men; why, while these are born in the
gutter, others open their eyes to light in palaces; while a noble
birth and fortune seem often given to the worst of men and only
rarely to the worthy; while there are beggars whose _inner_ selves
are peers to the highest and noblest of men; when this, and much
more, is satisfactorily explained by either your philosophers or
theologians, then only, but not till then, you will have the right
to reject the theory of re-incarnation. The highest and grandest
of poets have dimly perceived this truth of truths. Shelley
believed in it, Shakespeare must have thought of it when writing
on the worthlessness of Birth. Remember his words:

“Why should my birth keep down my mounting spirit?
Are not all creatures subject unto time?
There’s legions now of beggars on the earth,
That their original did spring from Kings,
And many monarchs now, whose fathers were
The riff-raff of their age....”

Alter the word “fathers” into “Egos”—and you will have the truth.

FOOTNOTES:

[31] “The phantasy,” says Olympiodorus (in Platonis Phæd.) “is an impediment to our intellectual conceptions; and hence, when we are agitated by the inspiring influence of the Divinity, if the phantasy intervenes, the enthusiastic energy ceases: for enthusiasm and the ecstasy are contrary to each other. Should it be asked whether the soul is able to energise without the phantasy, we reply, that its perception of universals proves that it is able. It has perceptions, therefore, independent of the phantasy; at the same time, however, the phantasy attends in its energies, just as a storm pursues him who sails on the sea.”

[32] Namely, the body, life, passional and animal instincts, and the astral eidolon of every man (whether perceived in thought or our mind’s eye, or objectively and separate from the physical body), which principles we call _Sthula sarira_, _Pranâ_, _Kama rupa_, and _Linga sarira_ (_vide supra_).

[33] There are five _Skandhas_ or attributes in the Buddhist teachings: “_Rupa_ (form or body), material qualities; _Vedana_, sensation; _Sanna_, abstract ideas; _Samkhara_, tendencies of mind; _Vinnana_, mental powers. Of these we are formed; by them we are conscious of existence; and through them communicate with the world about us.”

[34] By H. S. Olcott, President and Founder of the Theosophical Society. The accuracy of the teaching is sanctioned by the Rev. H. Sumangala, High Priest of the Sripada and Galle, and Principal of the _Widyodaya Parivena_ (College) at Colombo, as being in agreement with the Canon of the Southern Buddhist Church.

[35] Or the _Spiritual_, in contradistinction to the personal _Self_. The student must not confuse this Spiritual Ego with the “HIGHER SELF” which is _Atma_, the God within us, and inseparable from the Universal Spirit.

[36] Even in his _Buddhist Cathechism_, Col. Olcott, forced to it by the logic of Esoteric philosophy, found himself obliged to correct the mistakes of previous Orientalists who made no such distinction, and gives the reader his reason for it. Thus he says: “The successive appearances upon the earth, or ‘descents into generation,’ of the _tanhaically_ coherent parts (Skandhas) of a certain being are a succession of personalities. In each birth the PERSONALITY differs from that of a previous or next succeeding birth. Karma, the DEUS EX MACHINA, masks (or shall we say reflects?) itself now in the personality of a sage, again as an artisan, and so on throughout the string of births. But though personalities ever shift, the one line of life along which they are strung, like beads, runs unbroken; it is ever that _particular line_, never any other. It is therefore individual, an individual vital undulation, which began in Nirvana, or the subjective side of nature, as the light or heat undulation through æther began at its dynamic source; is careering through the objective side of nature under the impulse of Karma and the creative direction of _Tanha_ (the unsatisfied desire for existence); and leads through many cyclic changes back to Nirvana. Mr. Rhys-Davids calls that which passes from personality to personality along the individual chain ‘character,’ or ‘doing.’ Since ‘character’ is not a mere metaphysical abstraction, but the sum of one’s mental qualities and moral propensities, would it not help to dispel what Mr. Rhys-Davids calls ‘the desperate expedient of a mystery’ (_Buddhism_, p. 101) if we regarded the life-undulation as individuality, and each of its series of natal manifestations as a separate personality? The perfect individual, Buddhistically speaking, is a Buddha, I should say; for Buddha is but the rare flower of humanity, without the least supernatural admixture. And as countless generations (‘four _asankheyyas_ and a hundred thousand cycles,’ Fausboll and Rhys-Davids’ BUDDHIST BIRTH STORIES, p. 13) are required to develop a _man_ into a Buddha, and _the iron will to become one_ runs throughout all the successive births, what shall we call that which thus wills and perseveres? Character? One’s individuality: an individuality but partly manifested in any one birth, but built up of fragments from all the births?” (_Bud. Cat., Appendix_ A. 137.)

[37] MAHAT or the “Universal Mind” is the source of Manas. The latter is Mahat, _i.e._, mind, in man. Manas is also called _Kshetrajna_, “embodied Spirit,” because it is, according to our philosophy, the _Manasa-putras_, or “Sons of the Universal Mind,” who _created_, or rather produced, the _thinking_ man, “_manu_,” by incarnating in the _third Race_ mankind in our Round. It is Manas, therefore, which is the real incarnating and permanent _Spiritual Ego_, the INDIVIDUALITY, and our various and numberless personalities only its external masks.

[38] It is on this transgression that the cruel and illogical dogma of the Fallen Angels has been built. It is explained in Vol. II. of the _Secret Doctrine_. All our “Egos” are thinking and rational entities (_Manasa-putras_) who had lived, whether under human or other forms, in the precedent _life-cycle_ (Manvantara), and whose Karma it was to incarnate in the _man_ of this one. It was taught in the MYSTERIES that, having delayed to comply with this law (or having “refused to create” as Hinduism says of the _Kumaras_ and Christian legend of the Archangel Michael), _i.e._, having failed to incarnate in due time, the bodies predestined for them got defiled (Vide Stanzas VIII. and IX. in the “Slokas of Dzyan,” Vol. II. Secret Doctrine, pp. 19 and 20), hence the original sin of the senseless forms and the punishment of the _Egos_. That which is meant by the rebellious angels being hurled down into Hell is simply explained by these pure Spirits or Egos being imprisoned in bodies of unclean matter, flesh.

[39] “Verily, I say unto you, that whosoever looketh at a woman to lust after her, hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” (Matt. v., 28.)

IX. ON THE KAMA-LOKA AND DEVACHAN.

ON THE FATE OF THE LOWER “PRINCIPLES.”

ENQ. You spoke of _Kama-loka_, what is it?

THEO. When the man dies, his lower three principles leave him for ever;
_i.e._, body, life, and the vehicle of the latter, the astral
body or the double of the _living_ man. And then, his four
principles—the central or middle principle, the animal soul or
_Kama-rupa_, with what it has assimilated from the lower Manas,
and the higher triad find themselves in _Kama-loka_. The latter
is an astral locality, the _limbus_ of scholastic theology, the
_Hades_ of the ancients, and, strictly speaking, a _locality_
only in a relative sense. It has neither a definite area nor
boundary, but exists _within_ subjective space; _i.e._, is beyond
our sensuous perceptions. Still it exists, and it is there
that the astral _eidolons_ of all the beings that have lived,
animals included, await their _second death_. For the animals
it comes with the disintegration and the entire fading out of
their _astral_ particles to the last. For the human _eidolon_ it
begins when the Atma-Buddhi-Manasic triad is said to “separate”
itself from its lower principles, or the reflection of the
_ex-personality_, by falling into the Devachanic state.

ENQ. And what happens after this?

THEO. Then the _Kama-rupic_ phantom, remaining bereft of its informing
thinking principle, the higher _Manas_, and the lower aspect of
the latter, the animal intelligence, no longer receiving light
from the higher mind, and no longer having a physical brain to
work through, collapses.

ENQ. In what way?

THEO. Well, it falls into the state of the frog when certain portions
of its brain are taken out by the vivisector. It can think no
more, even on the lowest animal plane. Henceforth it is no longer
even the lower Manas, since this “lower” is nothing without the
“higher.”

ENQ. And is it _this_ nonentity which we find materializing in Séance
rooms with Mediums?

THEO. It is this nonentity. A true nonentity, however, only as to
reasoning or cogitating powers, still an _Entity_, however
astral and fluidic, as shown in certain cases when, having been
magnetically and unconsciously drawn toward a medium, it is
revived for a time and lives in him by _proxy_, so to speak. This
“spook,” or the Kama-rupa, may be compared with the _jelly-fish_,
which has an ethereal gelatinous appearance so long as it is in
its own element, or water (the _medium’s specific AURA_), but
which, no sooner is it thrown out of it, than it dissolves in the
hand or on the sand, especially in sunlight. In the medium’s Aura,
it lives a kind of vicarious life and reasons and speaks either
through the medium’s brain or those of other persons present.
But this would lead us too far, and upon other people’s grounds,
whereon I have no desire to trespass. Let us keep to the subject
of re-incarnation.

ENQ. What of the latter? How long does the incarnating _Ego_ remain in
the Devachanic state?

THEO. This, we are taught, depends on the degree of spirituality and
the merit or demerit of the last incarnation. The average time is
from ten to fifteen centuries, as I already told you.

ENQ. But why could not this Ego manifest and communicate with mortals
as Spiritualists will have it? What is there to prevent a mother
from communicating with the children she left on earth, a husband
with his wife, and so on? It is a most consoling belief, I must
confess; nor do I wonder that those who believe in it are so
averse to give it up.

THEO. Nor are they forced to, unless they happen to prefer truth to
fiction, however “consoling.” Uncongenial our doctrines may be to
Spiritualists; yet, nothing of what we believe in and teach is
half as selfish and cruel as what they preach.

ENQ. I do not understand you. What is selfish?

THEO. Their doctrine of the return of Spirits, the real “personalities”
as they say; and I will tell you why. If _Devachan_—call it
“paradise” if you like, a “place of bliss and of supreme
felicity,” if it is anything—is such a place (or say _state_),
logic tells us that no sorrow or even a shade of pain can be
experienced therein. “God shall wipe away all the tears from the
eyes” of those in paradise, we read in the book of many promises.
And if the “Spirits of the dead” are enabled to return and see all
that is going on on earth, and especially _in their homes_, what
kind of bliss can be in store for them?

WHY THEOSOPHISTS DO NOT BELIEVE IN THE RETURN OF PURE “SPIRITS.”

ENQ. What do you mean? Why should this interfere with their bliss?

THEO. Simply this; and here is an instance. A mother dies, leaving
behind her little helpless children—orphans whom she
adores—perhaps a beloved husband also. We say that her “_Spirit_”
or _Ego_—that individuality which is now all impregnated, for the
entire Devachanic period, with the noblest feelings held by its
late _personality_, _i.e._, love for her children, pity for those
who suffer, and so on—we say that it is now entirely separated
from the “vale of tears,” that its future bliss consists in that
blessed ignorance of all the woes it left behind. Spiritualists
say, on the contrary, that it is as vividly aware of them, _and
more so than before_, for “Spirits see more than mortals in the
flesh do.” We say that the bliss of the _Devachanee_ consists in
its complete conviction that it has never left the earth, and that
there is no such thing as death at all; that the _post-mortem_
spiritual _consciousness_ of the mother will represent to her that
she lives surrounded by her children and all those whom she loved;
that no gap, no link, will be missing to make her disembodied
state the most perfect and absolute happiness. The Spiritualists
deny this point blank. According to their doctrine, unfortunate
man is not liberated even by death from the sorrows of this life.
Not a drop from the life-cup of pain and suffering will miss his
lips; and _nolens volens_, since he sees everything now, shall he
drink it to the bitter dregs. Thus, the loving wife, who during
her lifetime was ready to save her husband sorrow at the price of
her heart’s blood, is now doomed to see, in utter helplessness,
his despair, and to register every hot tear he sheds for her
loss. Worse than that, she may see the tears dry too soon, and
another beloved face shine on him, the father of her children;
find another woman replacing her in his affections; doomed to hear
her orphans giving the holy name of “mother” to one indifferent
to them, and to see those little children neglected, if not
ill-treated. According to this doctrine the “gentle wafting to
immortal life” becomes without any transition the way into a new
path of mental suffering! And yet, the columns of the “Banner of
Light,” the veteran journal of the American Spiritualists, are
filled with messages from the dead, the “dear departed ones,”
who all write to say how very _happy_ they are! Is such a state
of knowledge consistent with bliss? Then “bliss” stands in such
a case for the greatest curse, and orthodox damnation must be a
relief in comparison to it!

ENQ. But how does your theory avoid this? How can you reconcile the
theory of Soul’s omniscience with its blindness to that which is
taking place on earth?

THEO. Because such is the law of love and mercy. During every
Devachanic period the Ego, omniscient as it is _per se_, clothes
itself, so to say, with the _reflection_ of the “personality”
that was. I have just told you that the _ideal_ efflorescence
of all the abstract, therefore undying and eternal qualities
or attributes, such as love and mercy, the love of the good,
the true and the beautiful, that ever spoke in the heart of the
living “personality,” clung after death to the Ego, and therefore
followed it to Devachan. For the time being, then, the Ego becomes
the ideal reflection of the human being it was when last on earth,
and _that_ is not omniscient. Were it that, it would never be in
the state we call Devachan at all.

ENQ. What are your reasons for it?

THEO. If you want an answer on the strict lines of our philosophy, then
I will say that it is because everything is _illusion_ (_Maya_)
outside of eternal truth, which has neither form, colour, nor
limitation. He who has placed himself beyond the veil of maya—and
such are the highest Adepts and Initiates—can have no Devachan.
As to the ordinary mortal, his bliss in it is complete. It is
an _absolute_ oblivion of all that gave it pain or sorrow in
the past incarnation, and even oblivion of the fact that such
things as pain or sorrow exist at all. The _Devachanee_ lives
its intermediate cycle between two incarnations surrounded by
everything it had aspired to in vain, and in the companionship of
everyone it loved on earth. It has reached the fulfilment of all
its soul-yearnings. And thus it lives throughout long centuries
an existence of _unalloyed_ happiness, which is the reward for
its sufferings in earth-life. In short, it bathes in a sea of
uninterrupted felicity spanned only by events of still greater
felicity in degree.

ENQ. But this is more than simple delusion, it is an existence of
insane hallucinations!

THEO. From your standpoint it may be, not so from that of philosophy.
Besides which, is not our whole terrestrial life filled with such
delusions? Have you never met men and women living for years in a
fool’s paradise? And because you should happen to learn that the
husband of a wife, whom she adores and believes herself as beloved
by him, is untrue to her, would you go and break her heart and
beautiful dream by rudely awakening her to the reality? I think
not. I say it again, such oblivion and _hallucination_—if you call
it so—are only a merciful law of nature and strict justice. At
any rate, it is a far more fascinating prospect than the orthodox
golden harp with a pair of wings. The assurance that “the soul
that lives ascends frequently and runs familiarly through the
streets of the heavenly Jerusalem, visiting the patriarchs and
prophets, saluting the apostles, and admiring the army of martyrs”
may seem of a more pious character to some. Nevertheless, it is
a hallucination of a far more delusive character, since mothers
love their children with an immortal love, we all know, while the
personages mentioned in the “heavenly Jerusalem” are still of a
rather doubtful nature. But I would, still, rather accept the “new
Jerusalem,” with its streets paved like the show windows of a
jeweller’s shop, than find consolation in the heartless doctrine
of the Spiritualists. The idea alone that the _intellectual
conscious souls_ of one’s father, mother, daughter or brother find
their bliss in a “Summer land”—only a little more natural, but
just as ridiculous as the “New Jerusalem” in its description—would
be enough to make one lose every respect for one’s “departed
ones.” To believe that a pure spirit can feel happy while doomed
to witness the sins, mistakes, treachery, and, above all, the
sufferings of those from whom it is severed by death and whom it
loves best, without being able to help them, would be a maddening
thought.

ENQ. There is something in your argument. I confess to having never
seen it in this light.

THEO. Just so, and one must be selfish to the core and utterly devoid
of the sense of retributive justice, to have ever imagined such a
thing. We are with those whom we have lost in material form, and
far, far nearer to them now, than when they were alive. And it is
not only in the fancy of the _Devachanee_, as some may imagine,
but in reality. For pure divine love is not merely the blossom
of a human heart, but has its roots in eternity. Spiritual holy
love is immortal, and Karma brings sooner or later all those who
loved each other with such a spiritual affection to incarnate once
more in the same family group. Again we say that love beyond the
grave, illusion though you may call it, has a magic and divine
potency which reacts on the living. A mother’s _Ego_ filled with
love for the imaginary children it sees near itself, living a life
of happiness, as real to _it_ as when on earth—that love will
always be felt by the children in flesh. It will manifest in their
dreams, and often in various events—in _providential_ protections
and escapes, for love is a strong shield, and is not limited by
space or time. As with this Devachanic “mother,” so with the rest
of human relationships and attachments, save the purely selfish or
material. Analogy will suggest to you the rest.

ENQ. In no case, then, do you admit the possibility of the
communication of the living with the _disembodied_ spirit?

THEO. Yes, there is a case, and even two exceptions to the rule. The
first exception is during the few days that follow immediately the
death of a person and before the _Ego_ passes into the Devachanic
state. Whether any living mortal, save a few exceptional
cases—(when the intensity of the desire in the dying person to
return for some purpose forced the higher consciousness _to
remain awake_, and therefore it was really the _individuality_,
the “Spirit” that communicated)—has derived much benefit from
the return of the spirit into the _objective_ plane is another
question. The spirit is dazed after death and falls very soon
into what we call “_pre-devachanic_ unconsciousness.” The second
exception is found in the _Nirmanakayas_.

ENQ. What about them? And what does the name mean for you?

THEO. It is the name given to those who, though they have won the right
to Nirvana and cyclic rest—(_not_ “Devachan,” as the latter is
an illusion of our consciousness, a happy dream, and as those
who are fit for Nirvana must have lost entirely every desire or
possibility of the world’s illusions)—have out of pity for mankind
and those they left on earth renounced the Nirvanic state. Such
an adept, or Saint, or whatever you may call him, believing it
a selfish act to rest in bliss while mankind groans under the
burden of misery produced by ignorance, renounces Nirvana, and
determines to remain invisible _in spirit_ on this earth. They
have no material body, as they have left it behind; but otherwise
they remain with all their principles even _in astral life_ in our
sphere. And such can and do communicate with a few elect ones,
only surely not with _ordinary_ mediums.

ENQ. I have put you the question about _Nirmanakayas_ because I read in
some German and other works that it was the name given to the
terrestrial appearances or bodies assumed by Buddhas in the
Northern Buddhistic teachings.

THEO. So they are, only the Orientalists have confused this terrestrial
body by understanding it to be _objective_ and _physical_ instead
of purely astral and subjective.

ENQ. And what good can they do on earth?

THEO. Not much, as regards individuals, as they have no right to
interfere with Karma, and can only advise and inspire mortals for
the general good. Yet they do more beneficent actions than you
imagine.

ENQ. To this Science would never subscribe, not even modern psychology.
For them, no portion of intelligence can survive the physical
brain. What would you answer them?

THEO. I would not even go to the trouble of answering, but would simply
say, in the words given to “M.A. Oxon,” “Intelligence is
perpetuated after the body is dead. Though it is not a question
of the brain only.... It is reasonable to propound the
indestructibility of the human spirit from what we know” (_Spirit
Identity_, p. 69).

ENQ. But “M.A. Oxon” is a Spiritualist?

THEO. Quite so, and the only _true_ Spiritualist I know of, though we
may still disagree with him on many a minor question. Apart from
this, no Spiritualist comes nearer to the occult truths than he
does. Like any one of us he speaks incessantly “of the surface
dangers that beset the ill-equipped, feather-headed muddler
with the occult, who crosses the threshold without counting the
cost.”[40] Our only disagreement rests in the question of “Spirit
Identity.” Otherwise, I, for one, coincide almost entirely with
him, and accept the three propositions he embodied in his address
of July, 1884. It is this eminent Spiritualist, rather, who
disagrees with us, not we with him.

ENQ. What are these propositions?

THEO.

“1. That there is a life coincident with, and independent of the
physical life of the body.”

“2. That, as a necessary corollary, this life extends beyond the
life of the body” (we say it extends throughout Devachan).

“3. That there is communication between the denizens of that state
of existence and those of the world in which we now live.”

All depend, you see, on the minor and secondary aspects of these
fundamental propositions. Everything depends on the views we
take of Spirit and Soul, or _Individuality_ and _Personality_.
Spiritualists confuse the two “into one”; we separate them, and
say that, with the exceptions above enumerated, no _Spirit_ will
revisit the earth, though the animal Soul may. But let us return
once more to our direct subject, the Skandhas.

ENQ. I begin to understand better now. It is the Spirit, so to say, of
those Skandhas which are the most ennobling, which, attaching
themselves to the incarnating Ego, survive, and are added to
the stock of its angelic experiences. And it is the attributes
connected with the material Skandhas, with selfish and personal
motives, which, disappearing from the field of action between two
incarnations, reappear at the subsequent incarnation as Karmic
results to be atoned for; and therefore the Spirit will not leave
Devachan. Is it so?

THEO. Very nearly so. If you add to this that the law of retribution,
or Karma, rewarding the highest and most spiritual in Devachan,
never fails to reward them again on earth by giving them a further
development, and furnishing the Ego with a body fitted for it,
then you will be quite correct.

A FEW WORDS ABOUT THE SKANDHAS.

ENQ. What becomes of the other, the lower Skandhas of the personality,
after the death of the body? Are they quite destroyed?

THEO. They are and yet they are not—a fresh metaphysical and occult
mystery for you. They are destroyed as the working stock in hand
of the personality; they remain as _Karmic effects_, as germs,
hanging in the atmosphere of the terrestrial plane, ready to come
to life, as so many avenging fiends, to attach themselves to the
new personality of the Ego when it reincarnates.

ENQ. This really passes my comprehension, and is very difficult to
understand.

THEO. Not once that you have assimilated all the details. For then you
will see that for logic, consistency, profound philosophy, divine
mercy and equity, this doctrine of Re-incarnation has not its
equal on earth. It is a belief in a perpetual progress for each
incarnating Ego, or divine soul, in an evolution from the outward
into the inward, from the material to the Spiritual, arriving at
the end of each stage at absolute unity with the divine Principle.
From strength to strength, from beauty and perfection of one plane
to the greater beauty and perfection of another, with accessions
of new glory, of fresh knowledge and power in each cycle, such is
the destiny of every Ego, which thus becomes its own Saviour in
each world and incarnation.

ENQ. But Christianity teaches the same. It also preaches progression.

THEO. Yes, only with the addition of something else. It tells us of the
_impossibility_ of attaining Salvation without the aid of a
miraculous Saviour, and therefore dooms to perdition all those who
will not accept the dogma. This is just the difference between
Christian theology and Theosophy. The former enforces belief in
the Descent of the Spiritual Ego into the _Lower Self_ the latter
inculcates the necessity of endeavouring to elevate oneself to the
Christos, or Buddhi state.

ENQ. By teaching the annihilation of consciousness in case of failure,
however, don’t you think that it amounts to the annihilation of
_Self_, in the opinion of the non-metaphysical?

THEO. From the standpoint of those who believe in the resurrection of
the body _literally_, and insist that every bone, every artery and
atom of flesh will be raised bodily on the Judgment Day—of course
it does. If you still insist that it is the perishable form and
finite qualities that make up _immortal_ man, then we shall hardly
understand each other. And if you do not understand that, by
limiting the existence of every Ego to one life on earth, you make
of Deity an ever-drunken Indra of the Puranic dead letter, a cruel
Moloch, a god who makes an inextricable mess on Earth, and yet
claims thanks for it, then the sooner we drop the conversation the
better.

ENQ. But let us return, now that the subject of the Skandhas is
disposed of, to the question of the consciousness which survives
death. This is the point which interests most people. Do we
possess more knowledge in Devachan than we do in Earth life?

THEO. In one sense, we can acquire more knowledge; that is, we can
develop further any faculty which we loved and strove after during
life, provided it is concerned with abstract and ideal things,
such as music, painting, poetry, etc., since Devachan is merely an
idealized and subjective continuation of earth-life.

ENQ. But if in Devachan the Spirit is free from matter, why should it
not possess all knowledge?

THEO. Because, as I told you, the Ego is, so to say, wedded to the
memory of its last incarnation. Thus, if you think over what I
have said, and string all the facts together, you will realize
that the Devachanic state is not one of omniscience, but a
transcendental continuation of the personal life just terminated.
It is the rest of the soul from the toils of life.

ENQ. But the scientific materialists assert that after the death of man
nothing remains; that the human body simply disintegrates into
its component elements; and that what we call soul is merely a
temporary self-consciousness produced as a bye-product of organic
action, which will evaporate like steam. Is not theirs a strange
state of mind?

THEO. Not strange at all, that I see. If they say that
self-consciousness ceases with the body, then in their case they
simply utter an unconscious prophecy, for once they are firmly
convinced of what they assert, no conscious after-life is possible
for them. For there _are_ exceptions to every rule.

ON POST-MORTEM AND POST-NATAL CONSCIOUSNESS.[41]

ENQ. But if human self-consciousness survives death as a rule, why
should there be exceptions?

THEO. In the fundamental principles of the spiritual world no exception
is possible. But there are rules for those who see, and rules for
those who prefer to remain blind.

ENQ. Quite so, I understand. This is but an aberration of the blind
man, who denies the existence of the sun because he does not see
it. But after death his spiritual eyes will certainly compel him
to see. Is this what you mean?

THEO. He will not be compelled, nor will he see anything. Having
persistently denied during life the continuance of existence after
death, he will be unable to see it, because his spiritual capacity
having been stunted in life, it cannot develop after death, and
he will remain blind. By insisting that he _must_ see it, you
evidently mean one thing and I another. You speak of the spirit
from the spirit, or the flame from the flame—of Atma, in short—and
you confuse it with the human soul—Manas.... You do not understand
me; let me try to make it clear. The whole gist of your question
is to know whether, in the case of a downright materialist, the
complete loss of self-consciousness and self-perception after
death is possible? Isn’t it so? I answer, It is possible. Because,
believing firmly in our Esoteric Doctrine, which refers to the
_post-mortem_ period, or the interval between two lives or births
as merely a transitory state, I say, whether that interval between
two acts of the illusionary drama of life lasts one year or a
million, that _post-mortem_ state may, without any breach of the
fundamental law, prove to be just the same state as that of a man
who is in a dead faint.

ENQ. But since you have just said that the fundamental laws of the
after death state admit of no exceptions, how can this be?

THEO. Nor do I say that it does admit of an exception. But the
spiritual law of continuity applies only to things which are truly
real. To one who has read and understood Mundakya Upanishad and
Vedanta-Sara all this becomes very clear. I will say more: it is
sufficient to understand what we mean by Buddhi and the duality
of Manas to gain a clear perception why the materialist may fail
to have a self-conscious survival after death. Since Manas, in
its lower aspect, is the seat of the terrestrial mind, it can,
therefore, give only that perception of the Universe which is
based on the evidence of that mind; it cannot give spiritual
vision. It is said in the Eastern school, that between Buddhi and
Manas (the _Ego_), or Iswara and Pragna[42] there is in reality
no more difference than _between a forest and its trees, a lake
and its waters_, as the Mundakya teaches. One or hundreds of trees
dead from loss of vitality, or uprooted, are yet incapable of
preventing the forest from being still a forest.

ENQ. But, as I understand it, Buddhi represents in this simile the
forest, and Manas-taijasi[43] the trees. And if Buddhi is
immortal, how can that which is similar to it, _i.e._,
Manas-taijasi, entirely lose its consciousness till the day of its
new incarnation? I cannot understand it.

THEO. You cannot, because you will mix up an abstract representation of
the whole with its casual changes of form. Remember that if it
can be said of Buddhi-Manas that it is unconditionally immortal,
the same cannot be said of the lower Manas, still less of
Taijasi, which is merely an attribute. Neither of these, neither
Manas nor Taijasi, can exist apart from Buddhi, the divine
soul, because the first (_Manas_) is, in its lower aspect, a
qualificative attribute of the terrestrial personality, and the
second (_Taijasi_) is identical with the first, because it is the
same Manas only with the light of Buddhi reflected on it. In its
turn, Buddhi would remain only an impersonal spirit without this
element which it borrows from the human soul, which conditions
and makes of it, in this illusive Universe, _as it were something
separate_ from the universal soul for the whole period of the
cycle of incarnation. Say rather that _Buddhi-Manas_ can neither
die nor lose its compound self-consciousness in Eternity, nor the
recollection of its previous incarnations in which the two—_i.e_,
the spiritual and the human soul—had been closely linked together.
But it is not so in the case of a materialist, whose human soul
not only receives nothing from the divine soul, but even refuses
to recognise its existence. You can hardly apply this axiom to the
attributes and qualifications of the human soul, for it would be
like saying that because your divine soul is immortal, therefore
the bloom on your cheek must also be immortal; whereas this bloom,
like Taijasi, is simply a transitory phenomenon.

ENQ. Do I understand you to say that we must not mix in our minds the
noumenon with the phenomenon, the cause with its effect?

THEO. I do say so, and repeat that, limited to Manas or the human soul
alone, the radiance of Taijasi itself becomes a mere question
of time; because both immortality and consciousness after death
become, for the terrestrial personality of man, simply conditioned
attributes, as they depend entirely on conditions and beliefs
created by the human soul itself during the life of its body.
Karma acts incessantly; we reap _in our after-life_ only the fruit
of that which we have ourselves sown in this.

ENQ. But if my Ego can, after the destruction of my body, become
plunged in a state of entire unconsciousness, then where can be
the punishment for the sins of my past life?